Fun fact #1: I'm late for everything, including this post!
Just kidding. That fact is only half true.
But I AM a couple of months late for this post...
...because I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to steemfest back then.
And I didn't want to break the rules.
Lame fact #1: I'm not a rule-breaker.
But, @anomadsoul said it's okay to post if I'm "fairly" sure I'm coming.
The only thing I'm sure about is that I'm determined to get there.
That I'm working for it.
And amazing people like @anomadsoul are doing everything they can to help me get there, and I don't want to let them down.
So I'm going to write this post with the assumption that I'm going to make it to steemfest :)
Alright. Time to drop 3 fun facts on ya - but with a twist.
I'll tell you 4 things. 3 are facts. One of them is a lie. Guess which one?!
Fact #1 - I Used To Be Asian
😅
Seriously.
I used to look like someone created me in a factory in China and dropped me off on a random doorstep in the USA.
Up until I was about 2 years old...
... if you set me down next to a Chinese baby, you probably couldn't guess
which one was American.
And which one was Chinese.
Not to mention, I was crazy tiny. So small, that my mom had to put cabbage patch doll clothes on me when I was born.
Because no clothes from the stores would fit me.
Fact Numero 2- My Great-Great Grandpa Married A Cherokee Indian Princesses
Somehow, I managed to go 90% of my life without knowing about this.
I knew that I had enough "Native American" in me to potentially qualify for a college scholarship.
And that my dad was 1/8 Cherokee. And that my mom had some on her side, also.
But I didn't realize that the bloodline was close enough that my grandma actually had pictures of our Native American ancestors in her photo album at home.
Seriously, grandma.
How could you hold out on me like that?!?
Anyway, I saw her photos for the first time a few years ago.
She told me, that her great grandpa and his brother...
...both married twin Indian sisters.
As if that wasn't already crazy enough...
... they were freaking princesses, to boot.
Like Pocahontas type chicks for reals.
Thing is...
...they didn't look like how you imagine a princess to look.
Like Pocahontas, I guess.
They were butt ugly.
They honestly looked like men to me.
I feel bad saying that.
Because there were plenty of attractive Cherokee people based on what I've seen in pictures.
But not these girls, unfortunately.
At least they had their royal status...right?!
Fact #3 - I was kidnapped in Nicaragua
😱
About 8 years ago, after studying Spanish in Costa Rica, 3 friends and I took a chicken bus to Nicaragua.
Chicken bus basically means we were traveling hobo style - as cheap as possible.
Let's just say we paid about $7 USD for an 11-hour bus ride.
Sometimes there were chickens on the bus.
Other times there wasn't.
Sometimes I'd sit down on a seat and it would just fall through straight to the floor.
I loved those crappy bus rides, honestly.
Anyway, after we finished our week of traveling together, and accidentally taking excessive amounts of valium... it was time to go.
I had to take a flight to Mexico so I wouldn't miss my first Spanish class over there.
My other friends were continuing the chicken bus journey up north all the way to Mexico.
So we split up.
A couple of people e had been talking to on the bus told me that they were taking a taxi going the same direction and we could split the cost.
I didn't have a cell phone at the time to call a taxi, anyway.
I'd usually just wait for a non-sketch looking one to come by.
So I agreed to split a cab with them.
Well... turns out that was a pretty dumb thing to do, considering I'd just seen the movie Taken with Liam Neeson several months before.
Never share a cab with strangers. Even if they're nice people that you met on a bus.
Because what happened next was awful.
They somehow had a gun and they stuck it to my head.
Then they put a blindfold on my eyes and drove me around to different ATMs.
They took all of my cards from me.
They kept yelling at me in Spanish.
"Give me everything in your accounts or we'll kill you."
So I shakily typed in my pin code as they were yelling at me.
Then we'd hop back in the car and do it again for some reason.
Cash limit on the ATMs I guess.
I don't know.
I couldn't think straight at the time.
Then the most horrifying thing happened.
We got down to the last one of my cards.
Put it in the atm.
And it didn't work.
It was one of those visa gift cards that looks like a debit card.
But it isn't.
So obviously, I couldn't get any cash off of it at the ATM.
They kept yelling at me, threatening to kill me.
I was just crying, trying to explain to them in my rusty, panicked Spanish.
I don't know if they understood me.
Or believed me.
But they got fed up or something, and shoved me and my backpack out of the car (after taking my passport and anything of value that I had).
So there I was, on the side of the road, totally traumatized.
I didn't have any money.
Or a passport.
So all I could do was hitchhike (hopefully in a nicer car this time) and find my way back to somewhere that I sort of recognized.
I had to rely on the kindness of strangers to give me a little bit of money so I could contact my mom and tell her what happened.
So, do what Liam Neeson says. Don't take cabs with strangers.
Fact #4 - I was prom queen in high school
👑 👑
It was kind of ironic because I always imagined the stereotypical prom queen to be the
exact opposite of me in every way.
But, I didn't go to a traditional high school.
I went to a really weird high school that was actually on a college campus.
Some of the college kids didn't know our campus was literally inside their campus.
They'd see us wearing our high school uniforms.
And they'd ask us why we all wore matching clothes.
We used to tell people that it was because we were in a cult.
But really, we just thought it was funny.
Anyway, these weird kids elected me as prom queen.
And the prom king was super non-stereotypical, also.
I remember when they crowned us, we both looked at each other and instinctively switched crowns.
So, during the entire dance that prom queen and king are supposed to do with the whole school watching.
**He was wearing a girl crown and I was wearing a boy crown. **
Kinda loved that.